There comes a point when the kitchen starts to feel different.
Maybe you're cooking for fewer people. Maybe you're cooking for more, with grandchildren at the table. Maybe you're retiring, or the kids have flown, or you've simply realized you've made the same chicken every Tuesday for twenty years.
Life is different. It isn't over. And this is exactly the moment to take stock.
When I make broth or stock, I like to look down into the pot. A good stock is clear. You can see right to the bottom and take stock of where you are and whether it's enough. These twelve journal prompts for women over 50 are meant to do the same: help you look clearly at what's in your pot right now.
Answer them at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, one or two at a time. There's no rush.
Looking back: the meals that made you
Food memories are powerful. For me, the smell of fried onions still announces that my grandmother must be in the kitchen, even though she's been gone for forty years. And tarragon will always remind me of a time in my life when I felt challenged, loved, and ultimately supported. It was a tarragon chicken salad kind of summer.
1. What smell takes me straight back to a person I love?
2. What's the meal I've never been able to recreate? Who was at the table? (It's usually the company, not the recipe.)
3. What did the kitchen I grew up in teach me about how a family talks to each other?
4. Which recipe have I made so many times that it says something about who I've been?
Right now: what's in the pot
5. Who do I cook for these days, and who would I like to cook for?
6. If my life were a sandwich, what's at the heart of it right now? Then: what are the layers around it? The star of the show is what you want more of.
7. What's in my "pantry" that's past its use-by date? A habit, a phrase I keep repeating, a way of reacting that doesn't work anymore.
8. When was the last time I cooked something just for me? What would I make tonight if no one else had an opinion?
Enjoying these questions? The free Cooking Therapy app for iPhone has a new kitchen journal prompt waiting for you every day. Download Cooking Therapy
What's next: the dishes you haven't tried
9. What's my "cover of the magazine" recipe? The challenging one you've always admired but never attempted. Why not now? You have years of wisdom, patience, and skill in stock.
10. What would I like to become a little less "old and crusty" about? An opinion, a routine, a grudge?
11. Which friend am I grateful for, brown spots and all? I like my bananas with a few brown spots. They've had a chance to ripen, just like the friends worth keeping.
12. What have I mastered this year? Big or small. Write it down and give yourself a round of applause.
Make it a ritual
Pick one prompt a week. Write the answer on an index card and keep it in your recipe box, right next to the recipes. Years from now, someone will find them, and they'll learn more about you from those cards than from any casserole.
P.S. If this story resonated with you, please click the ❤️ below. It helps more readers discover TherapeuticBites and it lets me know what connected with you.
Cooking Therapy pioneer Debra Borden, LCSW, is the author of four books, including Cooking As Therapy - How to Improve Mental Health Through Cooking. Learn more here about her writing journey, how she became known as The Sous Therapist, and the stories that shape her work.